CentOS Stream 10 – Common Problem 113 – Diagnosis and Fix

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents

1. Symptom & Impact
2. Environment & Reproduction
3. Root Cause Analysis
4. Quick Triage
5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
6. Solution – Primary Fix
7. Solution – Alternative Approaches
8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
9. Rollback Plan
10. Prevention & Hardening
11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

Scheduled cron tasks do not run or produce no output.

Environment & Reproduction

Common after migrating to systemd timers or shifting time zones.

Root Cause Analysis

crond is masked, environment differs, or paths are non-absolute.

Quick Triage

Check systemctl status crond and recent crond journal entries.

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Run jobs manually as the user with the cron environment.

Solution – Primary Fix

Use absolute paths, set MAILTO, and re-enable crond.service.

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Migrate to systemd .timer units for richer scheduling control.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

cron job logs appear in journal and produce expected output.

Rollback Plan

Restore prior crontab from backup if behavior regresses.

Prevention & Hardening

Monitor cron exit codes via Prometheus textfile collector.

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

Related to PAM_LIMITS and SELinux cron_t denials.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for centos-stream-10.

View all centos-stream-10 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

crontab(5) and systemd.timer manuals.